


Walls

by Riona



Category: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry
Genre: Dark, F/M, Imprisonment, Watadamashi-hen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29639178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Keiichi’s shoulder is aching, his breathing unsteady, and it’s starting to sink in that this is real. He’s not going to be able to break down the door. He’s locked in a cell, in an underground dungeon. Mionputhim here.She said she loved him.
Relationships: Maebara Keiichi/Sonozaki Mion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Walls

Keiichi’s shoulder is aching, his breathing unsteady, and it’s starting to sink in that this is real. He’s not going to be able to break down the door. He’s locked in a cell, in an underground dungeon. Mion _put_ him here.

She said she loved him.

There’s too much going on in his head right now, and it feels like he can’t make himself look directly at any of it. He braces his arms against the bars, tries to breathe more calmly. Tries to figure this out.

This can’t be real. But somehow it’s real anyway, so he’s going to have to deal with it.

-

It takes a long time for Keiichi to start to feel like he can think halfway clearly, like his mind’s not just yelling non-stop over any reasoning he tries to do. It turns out that thinking clearly isn’t really an improvement.

Mion was talking like something might happen to her. If something happened to her, nobody knows where Keiichi is.

How often do people check this place? Do they check it at all? It’s not like he saw any other prisoners the Sonozaki family would need to look after. Mion implied that she might not be coming back. If she doesn’t...

He glances over at the shelves of food, down at the far end of the cell.

How many supplies did she say were here? A month’s worth?

An empty dungeon full of torture equipment the family’s never had cause to use. What reason would anyone have to come down here? It’s the kind of place that might easily go for months without anyone setting foot in it.

His heart feels like it’s rattling in his chest.

He could die here. Even when his parents realise he’s missing, even if they send out search parties, why would someone check this place? He could starve to death, and it’d take months for them to even find his body.

He can’t think about that.

How is he supposed to not think about it?

What can he do? Yell? Who would hear him? Can sound even make it out of this place?

But he can’t just sit here and wait.

He yells until his voice is dry and rasping. Takes a sip of bottled water, a tiny amount, not as much as he needs. There are a lot of bottles here, but he has a feeling they’re going to disappear quickly.

He has to think about something else.

He sits with his back against the rough stone-block wall of the cell. Closes his eyes. If he can’t see the bars, he could be anywhere, he could be somewhere safe.

Mion said she loved him.

It scares him, a little, but not as much as the question of whether he’s going to get out of this alive. He tries to focus on that, to remember her voice as she said it, quiet and steady and resigned.

How would he have felt if she’d said it in any other situation? If she’d confessed to him when they were walking home from school, maybe, Hinamizawa golden around them in the late-afternoon sun, or when she’d invited herself over to his house? Something normal, instead of when she was locking him up and leaving him to die?

He’s had some weird thoughts about Mion recently, maybe. But that was when he thought Shion was just a persona she used, a secret Keiichi was in on. A way they could flirt safely and keep their friendship the same.

Since he found out that the twins were _actually_ two people, he hasn’t really known how to feel about either of them. He was kind of starting to fall in love with his best friend, and then suddenly he found out that she wasn’t his friend at all.

He pulls his legs up to his chest. Presses his forehead into his knees.

Maybe he’s in love with her, too. Does that matter, now that she’s killed him?

He can’t think like that. It’s _Mion_. She’ll be fine; she’ll come back for him. When has she ever let anything defeat her?

-

He tries not to think it’s been hours. It might not have been hours. Time probably feels like it’s moving pretty slowly right now. It’s not like there’s a clock in here.

He tries not to think it’s been days. It might not have been days. He’s been getting through the water, it seems like too much water for less than a day, but it’s probably just because he’s been yelling for help. It seems like he’s too _tired_ for less than a day, but he’s probably just emotionally exhausted.

He wants to throw up all over the floor.

She’s not coming back. He can feel it in his stomach, quiet but certain, as if he’s seen this whole impossible scenario play out before.

-

There’s a Western-style bed in here. It’s comfortable enough, he guesses, but he hasn’t been able to sleep at all.

There’s a pit in the far corner that passes for a bathroom, covered with a wooden lid. He resisted as long as he could before going, back when he still half-thought Mion might actually come back. He guesses the smell must still be pretty bad, but by now he doesn’t notice it at all.

There are shelves of food and water.

That’s it. The only other things in this cell are Keiichi and the endless, repetitive spiral of his thoughts.

(Maybe not technically endless. He laughs darkly at the thought, under his breath.)

It seems like he couldn’t have survived this long, if he really hadn’t slept. Maybe he’s managed a few minutes here and there. It’d be easier to tell if he had some way of checking the time.

He wishes he’d been wearing a watch when he got locked up.

Maybe it’s better that he wasn’t. This weird blur of indistinguishable time might be better than counting down the days until the supplies run out. Although the supplies have kind of been counting down for him; he’s been making up stupid games to play with the empty bottles and cans, nothing else to do in here, and his collection is getting larger all the time.

-

He remembers Rika finding him.

It doesn’t make sense. Nobody’s found him; nobody’s entered the room since Mion left it. But he _remembers_ Rika, here, looking calmly in at him through the bars.

(Not that that makes sense either. Who would be calm in a situation like this?)

_So this is where you go, the times you disappear,_ Rika says in his memories. _I’m sorry it took so many attempts for me to find you._

She’d been holding loosely on to the bars. He’d touched the back of her hand, to check whether she was real, and almost started crying when he found actual living warmth there.

_Perhaps it’s always too late when it comes to this point,_ she’d said. _But I’ll come here again the next time you go missing._ A dark, bitter smile had twisted her lips, an expression he hadn’t known Rika was capable of. _Assuming I’m still alive by then, of course._

It’s haunting him. He keeps thinking Rika must be dead, she’d have found him by now otherwise. She knows where to look.

But it’s not a real memory. She never found him; he _knows_ that. Why would he still be here if she had?

-

He hasn’t been eating enough, hasn’t been sleeping. He lies on the bed in a haze, his eyes half-closed.

He’s still awake, he’s almost certain, so it’s strange to realise he’s dreaming.

He’s still in the cell, in his dream; apparently he’s not allowed to escape it even in his head. Mion’s in there with him, lying next to him on the bed.

_I love you too,_ he whispers. _Please don’t leave me here._

She climbs on top of him, and kisses him, and speaks quietly into his ear: _You know I’m Shion, right?_

-

He wakes feeling a little more clear-headed, although a lot of his newfound mental capacity is just taken up with how hungry he is. He should probably eat more. He’s going to run out of water before he runs out of food.

He sits up to look out of the bars. There’s a part of him feeling that he’ll see Mion’s distinctive hair and smile, that he’ll hear her voice, that she’ll mock him for doubting her and he’ll deserve it. It feels like actually getting some sleep has finally revived a faint flutter of hope inside him.

There’s nobody there.

He bites down on the anger that tries to rise in him, at himself, at Mion. She’s his friend; she wouldn’t have left him here knowing that he’d die. It’s not stupid to hope she’ll come back, no matter how long it’s been. No matter how little time he has left.

If he dies here, he’s going to die believing Mion’s still trying to come back for him.

He’s helpless in here. If all he can do is believe in her, he guesses that what he’ll do.


End file.
